Final Play by Michael Troy

Author:Michael Troy [Troy, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-10-11T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Firebird

Laptev Sea

Tuesday morning

When Avinashi saw Nikolai climb out of the Kulneft Mi-8 onto the heli deck she took off running. Her first stop was the bridge, where she ripped the keycard off Captain Perkin’s waist before he knew what was happening. Then she ran the length of the ship to the data center where Ted was up and working with his team. Inside, she told them that the Russians had arrived and that under no circumstances were they to let anyone in. She stuck her keycard and Perkin’s in a desk drawer and then looked out the window. Seeing no one, she took a deep breath, opened the door and stepped out into the cold.

On Sunday, Avinashi had not been able to raise anyone at the Ministry of Natural Resources to discuss this new inspection right. In the afternoon she took a break when Ted bet her dinner that he could hit a golf ball far enough where she couldn’t shoot it. She told him if he would hit a wedge he had a deal. In half an hour she had won a week’s worth of meals hitting orange dots with the First Mate’s .308 at just under a hundred yards. That night Charlie copied her on his Ghawar email and called to tell her that of course it was now more important than ever that they get Firebird off on Tuesday.

By Monday midday there was still no response and she was ready to fly to Moscow and start taking hostages. A half-hour later it got worse when she finally reached a mid-level functionary at the Ministry and he informed her that they would be conducting a full review and to await further instructions. As soon as she got off the phone she had received an angry call from Rupert telling her that he had just been faxed an order to suspend the project, issued jointly by both RosPrirodNadzor and RosTekhNadzor. For good measure, the order was accompanied by an injunction issued by a judge in Krasnoyarsk that was claiming jurisdiction.

Avinashi got the Ministry representative to agree to make his team available for a conference call at eleven a.m. Moscow time. For KarLap, she managed to nail down Rupert and a junior lawyer from KarLap’s outside counsel in Moscow, Charlie in London on his way out the door to Heathrow, Ed Maxwell on Sredny Ostrov, their Texso Explosives Engineer in the middle of his night in Houston and on the Northern Ranger Captain Mike Perkins, Ted and the ship’s Master and Chief Engineer. Without explanation, no one from the Ministry joined the call and after an awkward fifteen minutes during which Rupert asked why she was still working for the company she let everyone go.

For the next five hours it was as if the Ministry had dropped off the face of the earth. Then at four p.m. Moscow time a small army of bureaucrats arrived at KarLap’s headquarters with absolutely no warning and announced they were ready for the presentation.

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